Five minutes later, he was conducted to the king's dressing room.
"This is a serious business, young sir, in which you have been engaged," the king said shortly to Desmond, as he entered.
"I am aware of that, Sire, and yet I am well assured that every officer in Your Majesty's service would have acted as I did, under similar circumstances." "The Baron de Pointdexter has written to us fully on the matter," the king said, "but we wish to hear the account from your own lips.

When did you return to Paris ?" "But two hours since, Sire." "Then you have lost no time in presenting yourself here.

Now, tell us the whole matter, omitting no detail." Desmond told the story fully.

He was interrupted once by the king.
"How was it that Monsieur de la Vallee's people were at Roanne ?" Desmond then related the fears that he and Philip had entertained, lest the vicomte should make another attempt to carry off Mademoiselle Pointdexter, and how, without the baron's knowledge, Philip had sent off a messenger to his intendant for a body of his men to meet them on the way; how the messenger had been intercepted and desperately wounded, and how, in consequence, instead of their being met by the party at Nevers, or north of that town, they had only reached Roanne after the attack had been made on the travellers, near Moulins.
The king asked no more questions, until Desmond finished his story.
"You did well, sir," he then said; "and the conduct of the Vicomte de Tulle was outrageous, and we should have visited him with our heaviest displeasure, had he not already received his deserts.

It is intolerable that a noble gentleman, with his daughter, cannot travel along the highroads of our kingdom without being thus assaulted.